Newsletter Articles

Neurodevelopmental Approach NACD has created a neurodevelopmental approach to human development, the achievement of human potential, and the remediation of developmental, educational, and neurological problems that is based upon the gestalt of the individual. The NACD Neurodevelopmental Approach utilizes a neurologically-based, targeted, eclectic treatment methodology. The efficacy of NACD’s Neurodevelopmental Perspective has been demonstrated with the over 25,000 clients whose … Read More

The Tucson Children’s Assessment of Sleep Apnea Study was published this year in the journal SLEEP [1]. In this study of 263 youth, sleep study and neurobehavioral data was collected twice, five years apart. Twenty-one of the children had persistent sleep apnea throughout the entire study. These children were six times more likely to have behavioral problems when compared … Read More

Historically, it has not been considered a “realistic” goal in the mainstream world for a child with autism to ever lose their diagnosis, let alone lose all the symptoms of Autism Spectrum Disorder and move completely into the non-autistic range of normal social interaction and communication. Although much recent research has documented individuals with ASD losing their diagnosis, there has … Read More

Anxiety disorders are supposedly the most common mental health issue today for adolescents, with one national study of more than 10,000 adolescents finding that about 31% qualified for an anxiety disorder at least at one point in their lives (Merikangas et al., 2010). Prescriptions given to children for these anxiety disorders are antidepressants that include selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) most … Read More

The National Association for Child Development is always looking for the best knowledge to further our understanding of developmental disorders and their remediation. Therefore, we are fascinated by the prospects of neuroscience research, but are fully aware of the current limitations. One major area of neuroscience research that has generated a lot of hyped buzz over the last couple decades … Read More

It might not be that shocking to find homeschoolers get more sleep than their public school peers, but a new study which featured 2,600 adolescents around the nation found homeschoolers get on average 90 minutes more sleep per night! Just to put that into perspective, 90 minutes a night over the course of a 5-day school week equates to 1 entire … Read More

Last summer, a group of researchers published a study in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience in which they used fMRI technology to show auditory working memory training (such as the auditory sequential processing activities in Simply Smarter) resulted in physical changes to the brain. In addition to showing auditory working memory can be trained, this research was able to demonstrate such training is … Read More

Have you ever wondered what it is exactly about the extra chromosome 21 that makes cognitive development in children with Down syndrome so challenging? Just this March researchers at the Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute published research that may have cracked the code on this one. The researchers have found that a protein called sorting nexin 27, or just SNX27, is … Read More

by Bob Doman We generally think of independence as being free of outside control. With children, and from a developmental perspective, I see it not so much as being free of outside control as gaining self-determination, autonomy, and initiative. To discover that you can affect and change what is happening and to perceive, learn, and develop initiative are very important … Read More

by Bob Doman Understanding and remediating the neurodevelopmental issues of those within the autism spectrum is critical if we are going to provide these children and adults with an opportunity to overcome their issues and to function at higher, “normal,” or even “superior” levels. It is important to understand that most neurodevelopmental issues will not simply go away. Merely teaching … Read More